Renegade (22 page)

Erik took a deep breath. Thirty-seven, out of ninety-six who went onto the rock. It was seventeen percent of all
Phoenix
Company. Even Trace looked a little stunned, that hard, glassy-eyed expression of someone accustomed to control but finding it difficult. Erik wanted to say that he was sorry, but that was redundant — sorry didn’t help, and too much emotion only made everyone feel worse.

“You took the rock,” he told her instead. “We’ve got a fighting chance of getting the ship repaired now. It was well done.”

She nodded stonily. “Bravo and Delta are finishing the sweep, they’ll do a full recon. I could send Echo too since they’re relatively fresh, but…”

Erik shook his head. “I don’t want more than two platoons in there at a time. We still might have to move suddenly, and we can’t afford to risk more.”

Trace nodded in agreement. “I’m going to have to rearrange a bit to fill in the gaps in Alpha and Charlie. With any luck we’ll get maybe ten of these guys back in a week, the rest will take longer. Depends how much G we have to pull in the meantime.”

“We should get a rest for a few rotations at least.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry about readiness. Just get your people healthy and make sure they get some rest. You included.”

“I’d like to go back in and help supervise the recovery,” said Trace. With anyone else, Erik might have been surprised. “I’ve got some ideas about those hacksaws, best to make sure Engineering don’t miss anything.”

“And of course the techno-nerds will need you to hold their hands and wipe their backsides,” Erik added, attempting humour.

He was surprised and relieved when she managed a small smile. “They’ll be okay. You’re letting Lisbeth go over?”

Erik exhaled sharply. A joke, he realised. “Fuck, don’t even say that. She’ll want to, just you watch.”

Trace smiled a bit more, and put a hand on his arm. “Sorry. We might get some tech out of it, at least.” Which was completely illegal in any Spiral Age. But right now, no one cared. “Those things are just…” She gazed into nothing for a moment. Remembering. “Twenty five thousand years old. How is that even possible?”

“Could be much older, the Machine Age went for twenty thousand more before that. But they die of age too, or something like it… presumably they change their parts when they need to. These ones might be relatively young, they were making new ones in there.”

“We didn’t find much mining equipment. Whatever they needed to make a fully functioning nest, they were short. If they’d been anywhere near full strength, we’d have been wiped out. They just fight like death itself.”

“Hey, you too,” said Erik.

Trace gazed at him for a moment. “You didn’t want me to shoot the queen. Why not?”

Erik did not answer her immediately. He still was not happy about it, but this hardly seemed the time or the place for another of their arguments over command and jurisdiction. “The Captain taught me things too,” he said finally. “Things I’ll remember all my life. One of them is that not every problem can be solved with a bullet.”

“You know what she could have done to the rock reactor,” said Trace. “This one needed a bullet. Ship safety comes first.”

“Trace… we’re in a unique situation here. I mean, a hacksaw nest. What are the odds?”

“We’re a warship, we don’t do alien diplomacy.”

Erik frowned. She seemed needlessly argumentative about it, when he hadn’t wanted this fight at all. Was it troubling her? Did she want him to convince her of something she wasn’t sure of herself? “Trace, that thing was smart. It was listening to you. Bullets are tools. Words are tools. You could have used either. But you chose the one you always choose.”

“
I’m
a tool,” she said flatly. “My life has a single purpose, and I’ve trained all my life to further my method of achieving it. I’m not some utility knife that can just activate a different blade — I have one blade, and it’s sharp.”

“And what is that single purpose again exactly?” Erik said with faint exasperation. “Service to Fleet? Who are now trying to kill us?”

Trace swallowed, and looked away. More unnerved than Erik had ever seen her. “Service to the human cause,” she said quietly.

“Ah yes, the good old human cause again. The Kulina serve the human cause through the agency of Fleet, which can do no wrong. No individual interests, no matter how strong and right, can compete with the righteous necessity of Fleet. If you still believed that shit, Trace, your best course would be to sabotage our engines and blow us all to bits, and save Fleet the effort.”

Trace stared at him. And had nothing to say.

Erik put the hand back on her shoulder. “If you died in that rock?” he said. “That would be a great loss to the operational integrity of this ship. But the far greater loss, to me, would be
you.
You’re not just a tool, Major. You’re my friend. All of these people here love you. And giant pain in my ass or not, I’d miss you.”

Trace looked emotional. And astonished him by putting her head to his shoulder — not a hug, just a quick half-embrace that two friends might use in passing. Then she parted, with a whack on his arm, and returned to her wounded marines.

A
t 0200 Erik
was in bed and as far from sleep as ever. For one thing, his quarters were unfamiliar — these were the Captain’s quarters, all personal items thankfully sent to storage by someone else so he didn’t have to deal with that emotional burden. But he felt like a fraud lying here in this bed, like the servant in some wealthy house who tries on the owner’s clothes when he’s away on business. And he was certain others in the crew felt the same to see him here.

Crew rotations were a mess with all the holes in the ranks, though thankfully his junior officers were sorting that out without need of supervision. They simply lacked the bridge crew for three rotations, and so were down to two. That didn’t matter so much now, as in these circumstances he was in the Captain’s chair far more than a usual eight hour shift anyhow… but over the long haul it was going to become a drag. The main problem was they now lacked pilots. As acting-Captain, he was senior pilot. He toyed with the idea of making Shahaim second-shift commander, but dismissed it just as fast — he needed a good co-pilot, and she superb at that. As a senior-pilot, not so much, so she was more use where she was.

Lieutenant Draper had even better Academy scores than he did, but was green as grass. Lieutenant Prakesh had been second-shift Helm, but had been on PH-2 with Lieutenant Chia and Dean Chong when it was destroyed. That left another Academy whizz-kid, Second Lieutenant Dufresne, as Draper’s Helm and co-pilot. Kaspowitz had said drily that given some encouragement, experience, and a good bedtime story before sleepytime, they’d do fine. Draper and Dufresne were just a few meters away in the bridge right now as he lay in bed, in effective command of
Phoenix
in one of the nastiest situations the ship had ever seen. That alone made the thought of sleep laughable. And he wondered, lying here in the Captain’s bed, if Pantillo had thought similar thoughts about young Debogande in the Captain’s chair. Worse, Dufresne was a known Fleet loyalist from a family of loyalists, and no one was completely certain she wouldn’t just hit some fireworks to show everyone where they were. Right now the situation was desperate enough that they had no choice but to hope that her instincts for self-preservation overrode her grander loyalties.

His buddy Remy Hale was over on the rock right now, heading Engineering’s scouting efforts, accompanied by Bravo and Delta Platoons. Unable to part with more than a handful of people for their scavenger hunt, Remy was rounding up marines and some off-shift spacers to sort through the hacksaw nest.
Phoenix
had left Homeworld without the needed overhaul or resupply — Erik had listened as Rooke explained what they were missing, but about half of it had gone over his head. Trace was over there too, of course, foregoing sleep in search of whatever it was she was searching for. Erik was unconvinced that it had to do with anything beyond her troubled state of mind.

He lay now with the slate on his thighs, watching various vid-feeds from the rock on one side, and nav-feed on the other. Rooke’s ETA on repairs was now a vague sixty-plus hours. Lisbeth was still down in Engineering, as far as he knew. She had indeed volunteered to go to the rock — it only made sense, she’d argued, given she was non-essential and personnel were so short. Thankfully she’d only argued her case in Engineering, and even they’d turned her down. No doubt not wishing to be blown out an airlock by the LC.

Nav-feed showed
Abigail
, now seven hours from her closest projected pass to their current position, on her way toward Maga, the Argitori fifth planet. She’d be turning over soon to decelerate, approaching mid-point of her one-G thrust journey. Still she was broadcasting Ito Industries ID in that unusual configuration, as were the rest of them. Approaching seventeen-seconds-light on a different vector was
UFS Chester
, a very familiar First Fleet cruiser. Two-seconds-light beyond her, was
Fortitude
, another cruiser.

Chester
was commanded by Captain Lubeck, an old friend of Pantillo’s. Erik had met him a few times on station call. Would he be angry, blaming LC Debogande for his old friend’s death? Or would he be asking questions of why the
Phoenix
’s crew hadn’t done in the rich-kid upstart themselves? Surely it must have dawned on many that something was odd with Fleet HQ’s story. If LC Debogande had killed his Captain, then surely
Phoenix
’s crew would not be currently backing him, given how much more they’d loved the Captain than his supposed killer. There’d be a mutiny on
Phoenix
, or something else to stop them from ever getting this far in the first place.

But then there was Trace, who held the
Phoenix
crew in thrall with her legendary status. HQ could accuse her of being in on the murder, and point to the bloodbath in the holding cells as indication that she’d lost it. Her marines obeyed her unquestioningly, and once aboard
Phoenix
, spacer crew would find themselves with marine weapons in their face if ever they questioned the LC or the Major’s command. There had been isolated cases before, of marines hijacking spacer vessels. Given the utter mismatch in close-quarters combat skills, that was a fight marines would always win.

But for that whole conspiracy theory to work, Erik thought further, HQ would have to convince everyone that Trace had gone nuts in the first place, and plotted with her LC to kill her Captain. Anyone who genuinely knew her would know that was silly. Of course, most of those who genuinely knew her were marines — ship captains might have met her in passing, but spacers and marines lived largely in different worlds. Possibly there were a lot of ship captains out in Argitori system right now, hunting for them, who were personally prepared to believe evil things of Major Thakur… but those of them with marines aboard would likely be hearing it from their marine commanders. Had the situation been reversed, and
Phoenix
were out there hunting some other ship who was in
Phoenix
’s current situation, Trace would have been chewing the Captain’s ear off if she thought the accused marine commander incapable of what was being described.

So which of the ships out there had marine complements?
Phoenix
was a carrier, and carriers were made bigger than most specifically to hold a large complement of marines. Accommodation for two hundred plus extra troops plus equipment and transport was a heck of a lot of weight to pile onto a warship whose survival depended on speed and mobility. So designers had had no choice but to upscale every other system as well — bigger thrust engines to push the extra mass, bigger jump engines to move between stars, and bigger and more numerous weapons to protect the whole, expensive enterprise. Troop carriers were slow and vulnerable, but combat carriers were about the most deadly thing in space. They also cost about the same as five perfectly effective cruisers, and were blasted by some Admirals as overrated and a waste of resources.

The United Forces Fleet was actually seven fleets. Each fleet had three combat carriers, for twenty-one total. Erik didn’t recognise any of those here, though it was possible others were on their way. He was also noticing a distinct lack of
Phoenix
’s most familiar support vessels. They varied,
Phoenix
did not have a ‘support fleet’ as such, though doctrine was that combat carriers would always operate with numerous support where possible, being too valuable to risk alone. But over the past four months’ operations, a usual bunch had accumulated, and those crews and captains had come to know each other well.

He did not see any of those vessels here. Small wonder. Probably HQ was sending word to other fleets and forces within rapid response range, to find captains who knew nothing of Pantillo personally, and would believe whatever nonsense they were told. Most particularly they’d get those captains whose primary skill was to climb the greasy pole, and would not disobey an order to round up their grandmas were their next promotion contingent on doing so. Erik knew there were many. The Captain had bitched about very little, but when he did, those other sorts of captain were usually the subject.

Still, that presence of marines onboard ships looking for them was worth considering. He made a call to Second Lieutenant Abacha on second-shift Scan. “Hi Karli, it’s the LC. Just a note, I’d like you to make a list of any ships out there with smaller marine complements. Trace it back to their jump signatures when they first arrived and make some guesses from who we know was at Homeworld.”

“
Aye LC,”
Abacha said warily. “
We can assume they won’t send anyone friendly after us, right?”

“Exactly,” said Erik, thankful Abacha understood. “So see if you can get me a list of probables. The Captain had Worlder sympathies, we all know it. You don’t have to do it yourself, but get someone or someones to go back over those captains who were at Homeworld, and match them against known political sympathies, if any. It might not be on record — ask around if it’s not. I’d like to know exactly who’s out there, and I just haven’t been around long enough to know all this old gossip. The guys who knew were the Captain, and Commander Huang.”

“
Aye LC, I’ll get on it. And LC… I don’t know if you saw, but thirty minutes ago, that chah'nas ship manoeuvred.”

“I saw it.”

“
It looked to me like a search grid move, something they’re coordinating with someone else. I think she might not be alone.”
Another chah'nas ship nearby. Running dark.

“Interesting. Keep an eye on it.”

“
Aye LC.”

Because of all the ships and captains searching for them, the ones with the least compulsion for mercy toward
Phoenix
were the chah'nas. Erik wondered drily how many more of them HQ would bring in to look for them.

O
ff the main
hangar Trace had passed through in the marines’ first armoured sweep of the rock, the Engineering crew had found corridors converging to make crew quarters and control rooms. Trace glided along them now in zero-G, her suit light illuminating wall panelling, doorways and light fittings, and trying to imagine it all as it had been, ten thousand years before.

The artwork astonished her. She paused before one such piece, gazing at abstract shapes carved into the rock wall, and wondered what it had meant to those who’d made it. There were circles and crescents that might have been planets, and some triangles, all run through with beams of what might have been multi-spectrum light. In the design it seemed to refract into different beams, then pass through an eye, surrounded by… clouds?

It could only be tavalai, she thought, wishing the air were warm enough, and clean enough, to open her visor and take a closer, unfiltered look. Only tavalai would take the time and effort to carve pictures into rock. Chah'nas weren’t much on art beyond the crudely symbolic, and krim hadn’t been known to even comprehend the concept. On Sugauli, there wasn’t anything left of krim but some old mines and ruined settlements. No artistic flourish to recall an entire species by. But the krim hadn’t appeared to care about that, so it seemed pointless that humans should care about it either.

“
Big deal,”
said Private Van, arriving at her side to peer at the shapes. “
A kid could do this.”
Trace sighed. Krim weren’t the only ones without artistic appreciation.

“You know T-Bone,” she told him, “I did tell you to stay behind and sleep.”

“
You did,”
said Van. “
What’s your point?”

“My point is that for a commanding officer, I seem to have very little say in who comes with me.” She waved him on, and the rest of Command Squad behind him. None of them had listened when she’d told them to stay, but her reprimand held only affection.

Grand passages opened into stairs, and an open elevator in the middle of a circular walkway. Trace peered through doorways, and found rooms stripped bare save fittings for water, electricity and others. All the air was pumped in through great vents hidden behind wall grilles. The machines didn’t need air, but they preferred a higher temperature than the super-freeze their metal bodies would drop to in a vacuum this far from any sun.

Trace found Ensign Hale and two Engineering colleagues in a command room. It was a big, circular space with a pronounced step-up to some large chairs on a platform overlooking the others. In the centre of the room, some artistic decoration in what would have been a central power column and ceiling support. Further around the rim were the main workstations, smaller chairs facing onto blank frames where long ago, display screens would have been mounted.

Hale and another spacer drifted by one of the big command chairs, with cables fed into one of those empty sockets. Trace’s uplink found a construct running in the room, and opened onto an engineering-geek conversation about data feeds and programming languages.

“
Wow,”
said Corporal Riskin from Alpha Heavy Squad, who’d also come along with his chain gun. “
Those command chairs are bigger, right?”

“Chah'nas,” said Trace, turning off her suit light. The techs had portables set up, and she didn’t want to blind anyone. “These lower work stations are for tavalai. The big boss chah'nas sit in the big chairs, and crack the whip on the tavalai down here.”

“
Poor bloody froggies, huh?”
said Terez with dry sarcasm. “
Must have sucked for them.”

Yes, Trace thought, looking around. Yes, it must have. Tavalai were very far from slaves in the Empire, but they’d followed chah'nas rules. And by god did the chah'nas have rules. Strict caste segregation amongst their own kind, strict behavioural codes, strict everything. Chah'nas society was a maze, and when they’d been in charge, everyone else had been forced to appreciate their bizarre sense of order. Chah'nas weren’t inherently cruel or parochial — so long as you played by their rules, you’d get a fair run. They’d discovered early that tavalai were better at bureaucracy and what they regarded as ‘lower-level governance’, than chah'nas were, and from then on, tavalai had been regarded as a separate caste within chah'nas society who specialised in precisely those lower-level functions. It had grown to entail quite a bit of power, and tavalai who remained satisfied with that had done quite well, and been treated ‘fairly’, as far as that went.